Update 51 - Ask IGA and Three New Characters

FWIW, this is way less harsh than I expected. Not sure why you thought you'd get any heat. Allow me a rebuttal though:

• I don't think this game has evoked any irresponsible connections to Nazis or their ideology (the game isn't even set around/during WWII) so I don't think your frustration on that angle is fair. HOWEVER, this game does have a lot of blondes (since Miriam and Gebel are technically blond) and I will agree that blonde hair and blue eyes is overused in Japanese media. In general I'm with you I'd like to see more variety in aesthetics. As a Black guy I'd also love to see more variety in skin tone too - I'm having a hard time thinking of many prominent people of color over the course of the Castlevania series and it seems Bloodstained (at least the first game) unfortunately won't buck that trend. (Before anyone says "but 17th century England", that doesn't mean much when we have characters coming from Japan in the game; England was in regular contact with Africa/India/etc.; the Romani population that has been a mainstay of Europe; this is a game with demons so LOL "realism"; etc.)
  

• I respect your concerns about say bust size but as long as tone and context is maintained (I touch upon this further down), I don't think I'll ever understand the perspective "if character X has a bust size above  Y then its wrong!". I'll respect the opinion but it still doesn't make sense to me. The DoA comparison feels off because the issue there is that the characters are HEAVILY sexualized (that's like the point of those games) and many products with DoA characters emphasize sex appeal over anything else. I'm not saying the gameplay for the fighting games are bad but that is clearly not how Koei-Tecmo primarily sells the games. The proportions for DoA characters aren't even unrealistic but rather super idealized (and also kind of samey across the cast). A character having "DoA proportions" (which in itself is  a pretty subjective measure) doesn't inherently mean anything by itself or anything bad.
  

• Dominique is a "nun" (well technically she's an exorcist, not a nun but whatever) in the same way Zangetsu is a "samurai". I don't think not having realistic attire in an unrealistic game for big role player characters is really an issue? Like Miriam and Gebel also look kind of ridiculous to be honest but that's par for the course for fantasy gothic horror (where there is almost always an undercurrent of sexuality - vampires for example are pretty much metaphors for lust). The biggest concerns for "sexy" designs would be again tone and context. Given the other characters I've mentioned, what has been done in previous Castlevania games and the general genre of fantasy gothic horror, I think Dominique fits right in I don't see how Dominique is uninspired but other revealed characters would not be (LOL Johannes).
  

• With the comparison to Bayonetta and her nun costume, I don't think the difference is as large as you think it is? Part of what makes Dominique attractive are her proportions. However the same is true of Bayonetta. Granted her proportions are pretty damn exaggerated (considered freaky by some) but at the same time, they prevent any outfit that she wears from being "conservative" IMO.

• I don't think its possible to answer if Dominique is being "sexy for the sake of sexy" vs. "owning it" without knowing more about her personality and backstory - we still only have a short paragraph to work with. I'd add that "motherly" characters often have voluptuous portions in fantasy media (if they are meant to be characters who stand out and not the homely, common mom - type). It highlights their maturity and kindness and here makes Dominique contrast strongly with Miriam. To that end I think the design makes sense and works.

• I feel if your speculation about Dominique ends up being correct, that would play even more into her being a successful design no? That is you can make what turn out to be accurate estimations of her narrative trajectory. The best twists are the ones you don't see coming initially but if you go back and carefully review the material the twist becomes obvious. That is to say twists that are built on a foundation and have been set up rather than completely out of the blue.
  

Ixbran hey there! I read everything you wrote, let me do my constructive criticism   
Also let me say a thing or two about what crocodile has spoken.

Everything i will say below is based on tons of materials i read about japanese culture, specially anime / gaming culture. I MAY BE WRONG.

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In general, japanese people identify foreigner as being blondes, with blue eyes. That has nothing to do with ideology of any kind. It is simply a cultural trait. When you live in a certain place, you tend to create characters that look more closer to what you see everyday, and when you want to create something more unique, you search for looks that you aren't used to see. So, they normally identify foreigners, non-japanese people with blonde hair and blue eyes simply because you don't see that in japanese people naturally. Take a look at several animes out there, specially when you have western characters interacting with eastern ones, and you can see that most western characters are blondes and / or have blue eyes.
That doesn't always means any kind of accuracy. Brazilians are all brown in animes (and that is not true), for instance. Normally, europeans and americans are all blondes, brazilians and africans are all blacks and brown. 
That is a cultural trend, not a specific ideology or anything of the sort.

Another reason for this, is because, in japanese otaku culture, hair color denotes personality. Black hair is mysterious, refined, powerful and independent. Grey and silver hair is calm, obscene, sublime, powerful. Brown hair means practical, consistent, sincere. Red hair means seductive, enthusiastic, hot-headed. Blonde hair means charming, ditzy, pure, holy AND foreign.

You can also see that on blood type. A lot of japanese characters have blood type, you can see that in character lists in animes and games, something most of us simply doesn't care. And that is because there is a tradition of linking blood type to personality. Type A is sensible, reserve, patient, while Blood B is passionate and creative, Type AB is cool and controlled and type O is confident and ambitious.
Japan and eastern in general is REALLY concerned and linked to symbolism. Hair color, eye color, blood type, all that denotes symbolic means that they really care about.

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As i said above, eastern games in general doesn't care at all about accuracy in clothing. Just look at Final Fantasy 7 and beyond to see that. 90% of their characters use completely impossible and useless clothing, because it is stylish, not because it is accurate. Eastern, specially japanese, put style (badass, sexy, cute, etc) over coherence. It's a nationwide japanese trend that is just getting stronger.
Another thing to understand is that, in japanese culture, and eastern culture in general, the "sexualization" has a very different approach than for westerns.
Japanese culture also has a real big thing with innocence and purity. A figure of innocence, like a nun, is easily sexualized due to being the pinnacle of purity and innocence. 

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I'm not saying they shouldn't change those things (although i don't think they should, at all). And i'm not saying those things are set in stone, of course there are a lot of exceptions.
I'm just explaining how japanese culture, specially otaku and gaming culture normally works. If you don't know how Japanese culture is, it is easy to think what has been said here. 

also youre forgetting, the borderline psychotically squeaky clean image were normally presented when talk of nuns and monks come up isnt very accurate, a sizable amount of nuns were former prostitutes (some orders still were cause it brought money into the convents), and though some orders were more about doing good works outside the convent walls while others stressed basically complete isolation, the ones that did work outside the walls (honestly the one id consider more worthy than simply locking yourself in a house till you die) were at times demonized by their own religion as being harlots and temptresses unable to contain their corrupting womenly wiles regardless of how penitent and how much good they actually did

so i wouldnt be surprised if some of those historical elements are interwoven with the more japanese elements of style over practical and her story is actually deeper and maybe darker than 'blonde big titted sexy nun' and her clothes may hint at some of that, so im curious to see if im right about her that theres much more there than a casual glance reveals

i may also be wrong, in which case holy mother of mammaries im jealous of her figure >P

Congrats on that Lv 99.
Also that's exacly what I was thinking, Alfred is the perfect guy to make a superboss for bloodstained. Someone shrouded in mistery with a fitting background to be even more powerful than Gebel. I Must honestly say that out of the 3 new characters is my favorite by far, so many opportunities for him to explore.

Huh, a lot of the things you just posted are mentioned on the Naughty Nuns page on TV Tropes. You know you stuff <3


I mean Dominique is gorgeous so most half-way decent art of her will look good

I JUST stumbled upon this so enjoy the SECOND piece of fanart I've found:



by isakitomozou

I posted a fanart made by me here, but it is too bad, i gave up on showing and deleted it

The thing is, that i started learning years ago, trained for some more years, than i gave up because i never saw any improvement. Anyways , this is off-topic.

So you feel you are out of practice? Regardless, I really don't think you have anything to feel embarrassed about and should share your art. However, I can't force you to do anything you don't want to do.


Eh, I feel a lot of that is about perspective (especially from the second to third shot) than actual changes in the model and I think that makes sense because I don't think Miriam needed or should have been changed in that regard and I think those who were bothered initially were a loud minority. I'd also argue that the reception to Dominique's design (from all the places I've seen) has been overwhelmingly positive (though that doesn't mean those that like it don't also have critiques of their own). Vepar was more mixed but it's hard for me to know exactly what the dev team took away from the feedback until they reveal her redesign - there was more that people didn't like about her than boobs. Nothing really suggests to me the dev team were particularly bothered by what they heard about Miriam and the "pushback" against Dominique has been way less intense than that so far - again most people seem to love her even if they have a nitpick or two.

These sorts of conversations also tend to take center stage when there isn't much else to talk about. If you zoom in on a characters bust, even if its small/modest, it is probably going to be the center of conversation. With the characters revealed here, their designs are center stage and one of the few discussion points so its going to dominate conversation again. FWIW, I really don't mind if we have these sorts of conversations as long as people respect that other people have different opinions. I think they are healthy and I feel all the designs shown so far are easy to defend. Miriam/Domonique =/= Quiet from MGSV LOL. There is also no way to please everybody with any design - you're going to get dissension no matter what you do so as long as you avoid generating intense negative reactions from people (designs are not legit bigoted or offensive, not stupid, not unreasonably ugly), follow basic design principles well (silhouette rule, appropriate context, design tells you the right things about a character, etc.) and you know your target audience(s) well (having variety in your designs helps here too) you are usually good to go.

FWIW, people on both sides can be hyperbolic but I mostly get irked when people get really dismissive and defensive of these sorts of criticisms (and I say this as someone who has and will continue to defend Miriam, Dominique and Vepar to a lesser degree). People really shouldn't do that - if you disagree with someone, provide a respectful rebuttal or just ignore them. I also get concerned because some of the language used is kind of problematic (I won't elaborate unless you really want me to but I'm sure you can figure out what I mean) in what it reveals about said person's thought processes so that can be disappointing too. Thankfully I haven't seen a ton of that here (but I've still seen a little and that bums me out and frustrates me).

My final comment is that I can see where people are coming from with the "Domonique might be evil" speculation but I'm just going to hope that doesn't happen because her design is one of the best ones revealed for the game so far (and I say this as a practicing Catholic LOL) and for all the reasons I posted in the "Domonique as playable?" thread I want her to be a playable character badly.

If they were all blue hair with green skin, I would still love it. Its a game